Do you know English? The challenge of the English language for patent searchers

Do you know English? The challenge of the English language for patent searchers

Abstract

The complex and inconsistent nature of the English language presents problems for patent searchers researching the prior art. This is true for native speakers as well as for those who use it as a second language. These problems include confusion in translations; “Patentese”, the jargon used by patent attorneys; terminology, which can take time to be adopted; “faux amis”, words which you think you know as they look identical to foreign words; the oddities of English spelling; multiple meanings for the same words; words that have opposite meanings; synonyms; Americanisms as different spellings and different words; words that are both nouns and verbs; compound nouns, which are often spelt as two words; spelling mistakes; and syntax. Conclusions suggest using broad classes together with keywords; looking for synonyms; allowing for two words in compound nouns; using adjacency operators; combining sets of results; and using citation searching as an additional search, especially if little is found, or the invention is difficult to describe. A thesaurus of recommended words and spellings would be useful if adopted by those preparing abstracts.